More Cold War
It's time for Episode 2 of Paris Confidential, my awkwardly named serial novella about agents in the Cold War. Yes, I know, it's been a while. But please read! Enjoy!
Things to know:
-This episode takes place in April-May of 1950. Meaning, it takes place BEFORE Episode 1.
-Episode 1 dealt with the SIS ambushing the Communist agents, but that hasn't happened in the story yet, so if you didn't read Episode 1, you're not missing vital plot points.
-This is not the Cold War of history, but the James Bond style Cold war with flamboyant agents, shootouts, and all the fun that you can have with fiction.
-Dante is the star agent of the British SIS (MI6), assisted by various field agents and his sidekick, Drew Langton. They venture into France to combat the Communist agents.
-On the Communist side, various agents and handlers coexist in Paris, funded by the Soviets. Soviet intelligence is called NKVD (its former name) or Ministry of State Security, since the KGB has not yet been formed.
This episode will contain chili powder, a peanut-butter loving Nazi, lucha libre masks, nostalgia, a French song, and one blood-covered suitcase.
1- Forest
Midnight in the Paris Archives.
The silence had a buzz of its own, a sort of static that engulfed Dante's ears. A night like black velvet, thick with its own emptiness, which promised everything in its absence of action.
On this night, the power work in the basement rendered all security devices useless. Only a few guards patrolled the lower floors of the building, and Dante's trusted associates had incapacitated them.
Langton- Dante's oldest friend and trusted sikekick- watched from outside, while agents known as Messers A, B, and C kept the peace downstairs. Dante alone ventured into the upper floors of the Archives building, where the death records from the war smoldered in their file cabinets.
A sheaf of documents now rested inside his shirt, in a special pocket tailored for the purpose. He didn't feel it shift against his skin. He didn't notice the itch of his false moustace and goatee. Dante was beyond discomforts, in the realm of adventure.
The carpeted floors felt like moss under his feet, the Archives' great oak cabinets recalling an ancient forest. These were the civilian death records. Paper epitaphs to the lives of Paris' ordinary people, dating back over one hundred years.
A forest of the ancients, he thought, a place to walk with reverence. He made no sound, keeping his breathing low and inaudible. He needed a cape, he thought, to properly swirl around corners.
He stepped deliberately, planting his toe around the final corner and swooping his body around.
A man stood silhouetted against the window. Tall, clad in black.
Dante snatched his Walther PP from the holster at his side. The suppressor on the barrel changed its weight, and the draw was too slow.
The streetlights outside lit up lines down the other man's body, making him skeletal and inhuman. His leg shot out at inhuman speed, smashing into Dante's hand.
Dante gasped as the gun hit the floor. The faint sounds destroyed the silence. The spell was broken. He dropped his weight into a fighting stance, putting his hands up, fingers together to form knifelike edges. He struck with one hand, and connected with his assailant's forearm.
The other man's arm went limp under the blow, but he blocked Dante's strike instantly. His shoulders were broad enough, but his form didn't display enough muscle for a real fighting man. He looked like a dancer, moving out of skill and practice instead of brawn.
The man's entire head was covered by a black cloth mask, leaving his only his lips and eyes uncovered.
He looked like a literary villain, the type that would turn into a black snake and strike out with fangs instead of limbs, Dante thought.
The man backed off, leg lashing out at Dante's face. Dante deflected it, circling around in a move his master had once called the Stalking Tiger.
Then Lance of Heaven- an elbow to the other man's temple. But the man in black redirected the force of the strike, dodging aside, backing off to aim another one of those kicks.
The man was too fast, Dante thought. He moved like he knew where Dante would hit next.
“You've studied,” Dante whispered. The words were louder than the struggle. Everything seemed muffled under the sanctity of that place.
Death records.
Forest of the ancients.
Human serpent, lurking among the files, ambushing him.
The mysterious man in black kept his arms up, boxing stance, but with fingers curled into claws.
Dante closed in, aiming a kick to break the man's knee. It was easily dodged. Dante's limbs flowed into another stance, the knife edge of his hand lashed out, smashing into the masked man's windpipe.
He rasped and drove a vicious knee into Dante's ribs, but Dante's thumb and forefinger formed two prongs and stabbed up under the other man's chin.
The man's gloved thumb filled Dante's vision.
“I'll take your fuckin eye,” the man gasped, “Who are ya, other'n almost dead?”
His French was that of the gutter, dockyards, and bad gambling houses. Still, it demanded a reply.
“I am Dante, agent of the S-”
The thumb dug in.
Dante gritted his teeth, thrashing his head to the side. His fingers dug into the masked man's neck, but his enemy knocked the hand away.
He let go and backed away, stance upright, with the agile feet of a savatuer. Dante leapt at him, feinted a kick. The other man moved to block, protecting his groin. Dante grabbed the edge of the file cabinet, launching himself off the ground. His knee connected with the black-masked face. It was a move worthy of Zorro.
The man fell and cried out, then scrambled to his feet. Dante landed in a crouch, fists up.
“You're good, brother, but you can't win this,” the masked man said, voice garbled by blood, “They call me Saboteur, and I've been killin Nazis since before you learned that ballet dance you call fightin.”
And he drew a knife. The image was picturesque in its horror- the figure covered all in black except for lips and eyes, wielding a hooked knife.
This, Dante thought, now this is an enemy. A real hero deserved a worthy opponent. Not some ex-military communist or some craven politician. The true villains were this sort, the skulkers in the shadows. Assassins. Fighters. Black-clad ambushers with foul language and mysterious identities.
“May I suggest something?” said Dante, voice too high and flippant.
His heart throbbed at the base of his throat, like the onset of a fever. Not since the India had he known a worthy enemy, an equal nemesis that could consume even his dreams. There had been many enemies since, but none had brought him that feeling of rightness and predestination.
He wanted to stand in some dark, hallowed place like this. Like the temples of India. He wanted, needed, longed for this confrontation with a black-clad enemy that embodied all the rough backstabbing evil of the world.
This Saboteur held real promise.
“Suggest away,” Saboteur replied, flicking his wrist to make the hooked knife dart back and forth.
His agility was that of a young acrobat, but his voice held the strain of an ancient, tobacco-loving longshoreman.
Dante gave him a demure smile and said,
“We are in the archives, on a rare night without security. I am looking for a death certificate, as are you, I suppose.”
“I'm sure as hell not here for the scenery,” Saboteur replied.
The faint light shone on Saboteur's eyes, and Dante knew that he himself was in shadow. They called him the Shadow, sometimes, an poetic term that never ceased to delight him. He used the shadows like a hero's cape- for flair, for disguise. Now, Saboteur could not see the shadowed Dante nearly as well as he could see Saboteur.
“I suggest we go about our business. I am here for the E cabinet, just there to your left.”
Saboteur shifted his weight, and Dante jolted in place. He forced himself to relax, to remain ready without making his muscles taut and slow.
“You're French is good, for a fuckin Englishman,” said Saboteur.
“Oh!” Dante grinned beneath his curled mustache, “So you have heard of me.”
Saboteur made a growling noise and said,
“I'm here for the R cabinet. What's it to you?”
“You hand me the file I am after. I will hand you the file you seek- look, the R cabinet is just beside me- and we part ways. The better to match wits and fists again, of course.”
“Or I could gut you like a fish,” Saboteur shrugged.
For all his bravado, the man was hurt. He held his masked head stiffly, and the sheen of wet blood covered half the mask.
“You should see a doctor about your nose,” said Dante.
Finally, he felt his shoulders relax.
“Live to fight another day, eh?” Saboteur laughed, “I'll look forward to it, Mr. Twinkletoes.”
“Dante,” he corrected, “My name is Dante.”
“What's the file?” said Saboteur.
Dante's name had no visible effect on this rough Frenchman. Something to ruminate on later. For now, infamy didn't matter. Energy flowed through the place, connecting them, and Dante was lifted on a current of fate and power that had a spirit of its own.
“Espinoza,” he said, “Just hand the entire file over.”
Saboteur threw it at him, and for a moment his eyes flicked away.
Dante dove across the floor, snatching his gun off the carpet. He came up in a somersault, the pistol and unwieldy suppressor aimed in front of him.
Saboteur was on him instantly, driving his knee into Dante's ribs.
A moment of pain paralyzed him, but he shoved the gun up against Sabtoteur's masked face.
“Had to try,” said Saboteur.
“Indeed,” Dante wheezed. His side pinched in pain, and his mouth held a lingering taste of bile.
Saboteur's mask was bloody from the nose down to the chin, and his breathing was too quick. Under the mask, his bone structure seemed delicate, with high cheekbones and an aristocratic chin. Not the face of a dockworker at all.
He scuttled backward, like a black spider. Dante stood, his gun never wavering from the target.
“Hand me the file,” he said.
Saboteur did.
“Now get yours out of the R cabinet,” Dante instructed.
Sabotuer flinched in surprise.
“I don't know how the French do things,” said Dante, “But I am a gentleman, and once my word is given, I will honor it. You may fetch the file you desire, and be gone.”
The masked man found his file, paged through it, swore, and stuck in back in the cabinet.
“Not what you hoped to find?” Dante raised an eyebrow, an expression probably lost in the dark.
“Presumed dead, no body,” Saboteur replied.
“I wish you good hunting, then,” Dante said, then, “Time you were on your way, Mr. Saboteur.”
“Fuck you and the fine horse ya rode in on,” Sabotuer spat on the plush carpet of the Archives, then turned to the window and threw it open.
In a move worthy of Zorro, Saboteur whirled out into the night.
“We'll meet again, I trust,” Dante called after him.
The darkness outside did not reply.
Things to know:
-This episode takes place in April-May of 1950. Meaning, it takes place BEFORE Episode 1.
-Episode 1 dealt with the SIS ambushing the Communist agents, but that hasn't happened in the story yet, so if you didn't read Episode 1, you're not missing vital plot points.
-This is not the Cold War of history, but the James Bond style Cold war with flamboyant agents, shootouts, and all the fun that you can have with fiction.
-Dante is the star agent of the British SIS (MI6), assisted by various field agents and his sidekick, Drew Langton. They venture into France to combat the Communist agents.
-On the Communist side, various agents and handlers coexist in Paris, funded by the Soviets. Soviet intelligence is called NKVD (its former name) or Ministry of State Security, since the KGB has not yet been formed.
This episode will contain chili powder, a peanut-butter loving Nazi, lucha libre masks, nostalgia, a French song, and one blood-covered suitcase.
1- Forest
Midnight in the Paris Archives.
The silence had a buzz of its own, a sort of static that engulfed Dante's ears. A night like black velvet, thick with its own emptiness, which promised everything in its absence of action.
On this night, the power work in the basement rendered all security devices useless. Only a few guards patrolled the lower floors of the building, and Dante's trusted associates had incapacitated them.
Langton- Dante's oldest friend and trusted sikekick- watched from outside, while agents known as Messers A, B, and C kept the peace downstairs. Dante alone ventured into the upper floors of the Archives building, where the death records from the war smoldered in their file cabinets.
A sheaf of documents now rested inside his shirt, in a special pocket tailored for the purpose. He didn't feel it shift against his skin. He didn't notice the itch of his false moustace and goatee. Dante was beyond discomforts, in the realm of adventure.
The carpeted floors felt like moss under his feet, the Archives' great oak cabinets recalling an ancient forest. These were the civilian death records. Paper epitaphs to the lives of Paris' ordinary people, dating back over one hundred years.
A forest of the ancients, he thought, a place to walk with reverence. He made no sound, keeping his breathing low and inaudible. He needed a cape, he thought, to properly swirl around corners.
He stepped deliberately, planting his toe around the final corner and swooping his body around.
A man stood silhouetted against the window. Tall, clad in black.
Dante snatched his Walther PP from the holster at his side. The suppressor on the barrel changed its weight, and the draw was too slow.
The streetlights outside lit up lines down the other man's body, making him skeletal and inhuman. His leg shot out at inhuman speed, smashing into Dante's hand.
Dante gasped as the gun hit the floor. The faint sounds destroyed the silence. The spell was broken. He dropped his weight into a fighting stance, putting his hands up, fingers together to form knifelike edges. He struck with one hand, and connected with his assailant's forearm.
The other man's arm went limp under the blow, but he blocked Dante's strike instantly. His shoulders were broad enough, but his form didn't display enough muscle for a real fighting man. He looked like a dancer, moving out of skill and practice instead of brawn.
The man's entire head was covered by a black cloth mask, leaving his only his lips and eyes uncovered.
He looked like a literary villain, the type that would turn into a black snake and strike out with fangs instead of limbs, Dante thought.
The man backed off, leg lashing out at Dante's face. Dante deflected it, circling around in a move his master had once called the Stalking Tiger.
Then Lance of Heaven- an elbow to the other man's temple. But the man in black redirected the force of the strike, dodging aside, backing off to aim another one of those kicks.
The man was too fast, Dante thought. He moved like he knew where Dante would hit next.
“You've studied,” Dante whispered. The words were louder than the struggle. Everything seemed muffled under the sanctity of that place.
Death records.
Forest of the ancients.
Human serpent, lurking among the files, ambushing him.
The mysterious man in black kept his arms up, boxing stance, but with fingers curled into claws.
Dante closed in, aiming a kick to break the man's knee. It was easily dodged. Dante's limbs flowed into another stance, the knife edge of his hand lashed out, smashing into the masked man's windpipe.
He rasped and drove a vicious knee into Dante's ribs, but Dante's thumb and forefinger formed two prongs and stabbed up under the other man's chin.
The man's gloved thumb filled Dante's vision.
“I'll take your fuckin eye,” the man gasped, “Who are ya, other'n almost dead?”
His French was that of the gutter, dockyards, and bad gambling houses. Still, it demanded a reply.
“I am Dante, agent of the S-”
The thumb dug in.
Dante gritted his teeth, thrashing his head to the side. His fingers dug into the masked man's neck, but his enemy knocked the hand away.
He let go and backed away, stance upright, with the agile feet of a savatuer. Dante leapt at him, feinted a kick. The other man moved to block, protecting his groin. Dante grabbed the edge of the file cabinet, launching himself off the ground. His knee connected with the black-masked face. It was a move worthy of Zorro.
The man fell and cried out, then scrambled to his feet. Dante landed in a crouch, fists up.
“You're good, brother, but you can't win this,” the masked man said, voice garbled by blood, “They call me Saboteur, and I've been killin Nazis since before you learned that ballet dance you call fightin.”
And he drew a knife. The image was picturesque in its horror- the figure covered all in black except for lips and eyes, wielding a hooked knife.
This, Dante thought, now this is an enemy. A real hero deserved a worthy opponent. Not some ex-military communist or some craven politician. The true villains were this sort, the skulkers in the shadows. Assassins. Fighters. Black-clad ambushers with foul language and mysterious identities.
“May I suggest something?” said Dante, voice too high and flippant.
His heart throbbed at the base of his throat, like the onset of a fever. Not since the India had he known a worthy enemy, an equal nemesis that could consume even his dreams. There had been many enemies since, but none had brought him that feeling of rightness and predestination.
He wanted to stand in some dark, hallowed place like this. Like the temples of India. He wanted, needed, longed for this confrontation with a black-clad enemy that embodied all the rough backstabbing evil of the world.
This Saboteur held real promise.
“Suggest away,” Saboteur replied, flicking his wrist to make the hooked knife dart back and forth.
His agility was that of a young acrobat, but his voice held the strain of an ancient, tobacco-loving longshoreman.
Dante gave him a demure smile and said,
“We are in the archives, on a rare night without security. I am looking for a death certificate, as are you, I suppose.”
“I'm sure as hell not here for the scenery,” Saboteur replied.
The faint light shone on Saboteur's eyes, and Dante knew that he himself was in shadow. They called him the Shadow, sometimes, an poetic term that never ceased to delight him. He used the shadows like a hero's cape- for flair, for disguise. Now, Saboteur could not see the shadowed Dante nearly as well as he could see Saboteur.
“I suggest we go about our business. I am here for the E cabinet, just there to your left.”
Saboteur shifted his weight, and Dante jolted in place. He forced himself to relax, to remain ready without making his muscles taut and slow.
“You're French is good, for a fuckin Englishman,” said Saboteur.
“Oh!” Dante grinned beneath his curled mustache, “So you have heard of me.”
Saboteur made a growling noise and said,
“I'm here for the R cabinet. What's it to you?”
“You hand me the file I am after. I will hand you the file you seek- look, the R cabinet is just beside me- and we part ways. The better to match wits and fists again, of course.”
“Or I could gut you like a fish,” Saboteur shrugged.
For all his bravado, the man was hurt. He held his masked head stiffly, and the sheen of wet blood covered half the mask.
“You should see a doctor about your nose,” said Dante.
Finally, he felt his shoulders relax.
“Live to fight another day, eh?” Saboteur laughed, “I'll look forward to it, Mr. Twinkletoes.”
“Dante,” he corrected, “My name is Dante.”
“What's the file?” said Saboteur.
Dante's name had no visible effect on this rough Frenchman. Something to ruminate on later. For now, infamy didn't matter. Energy flowed through the place, connecting them, and Dante was lifted on a current of fate and power that had a spirit of its own.
“Espinoza,” he said, “Just hand the entire file over.”
Saboteur threw it at him, and for a moment his eyes flicked away.
Dante dove across the floor, snatching his gun off the carpet. He came up in a somersault, the pistol and unwieldy suppressor aimed in front of him.
Saboteur was on him instantly, driving his knee into Dante's ribs.
A moment of pain paralyzed him, but he shoved the gun up against Sabtoteur's masked face.
“Had to try,” said Saboteur.
“Indeed,” Dante wheezed. His side pinched in pain, and his mouth held a lingering taste of bile.
Saboteur's mask was bloody from the nose down to the chin, and his breathing was too quick. Under the mask, his bone structure seemed delicate, with high cheekbones and an aristocratic chin. Not the face of a dockworker at all.
He scuttled backward, like a black spider. Dante stood, his gun never wavering from the target.
“Hand me the file,” he said.
Saboteur did.
“Now get yours out of the R cabinet,” Dante instructed.
Sabotuer flinched in surprise.
“I don't know how the French do things,” said Dante, “But I am a gentleman, and once my word is given, I will honor it. You may fetch the file you desire, and be gone.”
The masked man found his file, paged through it, swore, and stuck in back in the cabinet.
“Not what you hoped to find?” Dante raised an eyebrow, an expression probably lost in the dark.
“Presumed dead, no body,” Saboteur replied.
“I wish you good hunting, then,” Dante said, then, “Time you were on your way, Mr. Saboteur.”
“Fuck you and the fine horse ya rode in on,” Sabotuer spat on the plush carpet of the Archives, then turned to the window and threw it open.
In a move worthy of Zorro, Saboteur whirled out into the night.
“We'll meet again, I trust,” Dante called after him.
The darkness outside did not reply.